Address—David So
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Thank you for still sitting still.
Went I looked onto schedule and see.
Closing meeting.
I perhaps look at things differently. It gave me a different thought. Closing as if, well, depending on how you look at it, as the last meeting or is this the very last meeting we can have?
Wouldn't it be nice? This is truly the closing meeting. You know, some of you may have flown here or some of you been on a plane before. If you ever listened to the captain as he come down the runway, he said. We're making our final approach.
As if we're not going to fly anymore. This is it. And let's trust that this is it. Let's look to the Lord for help. I'd like to turn to the first chapter.
First Thessalonians. The thought may seem similar, but let's trust the Lord.
Give us fresh thoughts.
First Thessalonians chapter, chapter one.
It's been on my heart with this this book for a while.
I like to contrast that with contrast that with Ephesians.
You know, I'll often say he fees the book of Ephesians gave us the highest church truth. And as I look around and many of us here, I have known many of you for many years and I know some of the sisters, I'm careful not to use the word odor. Some of you have watched me grow up and seen my foolish years or my fun years, depending on how you look at it.
And so you know that many of us been in the faith for a while, but the Ephesians we know had a problem.
When the 2nd epistle was written to them, they were reminded that the Lord still know the works. You remember that, right? But then he said.
Into King James is I have somewhat against thee. Now, can you picture you say to your kids I have somewhat having a problem with you? I don't think that's the proper thoughts there. I really think the Lords I have against thee. Oh, that's terrible thought, isn't it? What did they do wrong? Paul, you're looking at me. Are you associating that maybe Mom and Dad has something to say to you in that home?
I got a problem with you that's that's hard, isn't it?
But we ought to listen. Theirs wasn't what they have done, but it's not the worked. But they have left their first love.
So easy, brethren. You know I've been wrestling with this thought.
The one breath we enjoy speaking to one another. And shall we see thy face, and see and hear that welcoming voice?
We need to seek and live in glory. We've been exalted and rightly so. But then.
I know I can't speak for others. Sometimes we the minute we'll go outside.
Our thoughts, our hearts start going.
Well, worldly. Well, perhaps that's the right word. Become earthly again.
S difficult, isn't it?
We say we would rather be with the Lord and then.
We admit it, Lord, the one whom thou love us. Love us? No, no, sorry, Lord, the one who is close to me, why are you taking him home?
Do we not wrestle with that? And then?
Perhaps a circumstance change. You're the one that with the illness, the Lord may take you home.
Do we have to faith? Do we? I wrestle with that. So the book of Thessalonians, I enjoy that because these are new Christians.
New in faith and sometimes it's nice to go back to the beginning as Bruce reminded us sometimes it's nice to take the bus from the beginning to the end to see what that route truly is like. So I enjoy that I not my intention to go through the book just depict our few thoughts how they were exalted by the apostle as new believers. Remember he was only in Thessalonica for three Sabbath. We found that in the.
I think the 17th chapter of Acts and he didn't leave the city under good term. He was chased away. So he didn't even have time to say, OK, now before I go, I would like to No, he didn't couldn't even do that. And by the way, the Spirit of God worked wonderfully, didn't it? The word was presented, an assembly was formed. We, I don't believe we know even who, what, how, but an assembly.
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Was formed.
So sometimes you have to remember it. In our chapter, we go further. He's the head of the church. And you know, often we have difficulties and we forget. Wait a minute, there's a head here.
To the sea need me. Does he need you to make sure that it's done right? And if it's not done right, do we believe there's a head? And you know, sometimes too, even what works we go, we often get reminded the harvest is right to be as white ready to be harvest. But the laborers are few and some of us feel burdened. But then we have to read on. Wait a minute. Is that there is the Lord of the harvest.
We need to be calm.
But before we get called, we need to be ready, sanctify and be ready for the master's use, don't we?
So let's turn to 1St Thessalonians chapter one. I'm going to begin from the beginning, verse one.
Paul and Sylvanas and Timotheus unto the Church of Thessalonians, which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, there is so much said in this one verse.
And I know there will be many things that I will miss.
Paul. Now notice he said, Paul, you go to Galatians, you go to some epistle.
He said the apostle.
Interesting this is just Paul.
We are equal when we say accommodate an apostle. In fact, he said, do I need to come with a rod to correct you? No, not in this case. This is exaltation. In fact, when you get to the second chapter, which we won't go into, he talked about how he was like a father nursing. Wonderful, isn't it?
Paul.
Oh, just Paul and Sylvanus and Timotheus. We know he was so worried about them he sent Timotheus to check them out and he was didn't have good peace until Timothy can come back and give them a report. So he wrote to the Church of the Assembly of the Thessalonians now.
I believe we took some of these up, but perhaps we didn't say it loudly. He addressed this, which is in God the Father.
Do we recognize that God the Father is involved?
Israel, of all they knew there is a God. Jehovah is the one whom they fear.
They did not know Him as a father. They know Him as a God. Do you as redeem one, know that He is a God? Not only a God, but our Father. So often when we pray, we can say our God. And by the way, I believe that's proper, addressing Him as God first and our Father.
Isn't it wonderful to have that close relationship?
If you remember, if you recall the.
Parables of the prodigal son. We often speaks of him, but if you go further at the end of the chapter, it speaks of his older brother. It's interesting. If you spend the time to look at it, you'll find that the older brother heard music and dancing in the father's house. And what did he do? What would you do if you heard something in your dad's house?
I would run over to see what's going on. No, he called one of the servants over and said, hey, what's going on in dad's house? What kind of relationship he had with his father? He did not even know the father planned for this big party. He wouldn't even kill the fatted calf. And you can look up into that fatted calf picture, too. There's so much in there. What is your relationship? Do you need to talk to the?
God through a mediator, No, He's your father. We can address him. So he reminded them that in God the Father.
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And.
In the Lord Jesus Christ.
His full title, He is our Lord, the one whom we have given our life over to him. That's what the Lord is. He can demand for our life. We think that Him sometimes our life, our awe, well, He's our Lord. His name is Jesus, the one who came to save his people from their sins.
And how beautiful. This weekend, we look at both sides of redemption.
Propitiation God's side and man South side, but he is our Lord, He is Jesus and he is the anointed. 1 Jesus Christ. Then he's able to say to them, grace be unto you and peace, and it's from our Father our God, and from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. You find God's work often the Trinity is working together.
Especially when we look carefully.
God the Father and the Spirit and through his Spirit that he teach us more about our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. Now I'm going to skip some of the verses. I'm going to go down part way through verse 3. The apostle recognized three things which we know we ourselves.
So as Christian as we are call, there are three characteristics that Christians are known for.
You know that faith.
Love and hope, but it's interesting in here now you find in Colossians he mentioned that too, but the wording used here a little bit different. Verse three he says, remembering without ceasing.
Your work of faith.
Work of faith. Not just faith, not just work, but your work of faith.
Sometimes we have work. Sometimes we think we have faith. Sometimes we don't have work. We don't have faith. Show me your work and I'll show you my faith. And sometimes we think work and faith goes together.
Or does it? I enjoy reading one time this isn't I don't remember the article.
Perhaps you, as I say, through one of the BTP publications, that should help you find that. And this brother explained to us, it's like fire and smoke. We often use that phrase, well, if there is smoke, there is fire. You heard of that? But it's not quite true. It's true that if there's smoke, chances that there is fire. But fire is not smoke and smoke is not fire.
Smoke.
Smoke. You can cry. You can. I should say you can tear smoke come into your face. It doesn't give you any warmth. Right? I heard there was a bonfire the other night. I don't know if it ever did. And some of the young people would remember. Is fun to have a bonfire. Well, the problem is you mean the front row is too hot. You stand behind at the second or third row. You don't feel the heat because it's blocked, but you may feel the smoke coming by.
And makes you cry. And makes your clothes smell smoke for days.
Fire give heat, fire have other purposes or usefulness were smoke don't.
Smoke is the evidence there is a fire, but it doesn't mean there is a fire. So when we look at one's work, is it the work of faith? And I'm not going to use examples because then you can point fingers back. You have to judge that faith is simply believing what God wanted you to do. Faith is very simple. You don't need to go through these scientific explanations.
Why? That's your faith. Faith is simple work of faith, not just work. It's not good to just pick up someone else's work. You call and do you have the faith in doing so. The apostle recognized this new Christians, they have to work our faith. There is evidence. You don't need to prove it.
Then he said the labor of love, not just love.
Their work to do that.
Often hear this expression.
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There's no love shown here.
What is love?
Is this spoon feeding?
A brother loved me because he would do everything I asked him to do.
And do it for me. Is that love?
I spoke at this briefly last weekend in Vesto. Now use a similar illustration. I was able to pick on a young man and I won't do it here. And because everybody know that young man so was OK, I said, well, what if he as a teenager said to his mom, mom, I want firecrackers.
What? Mom, just say, well, because I love you so much that I'll let you buy as much as many firecrackers as possible. Well, I don't think so. I know his mother.
Now, yes, maybe he'll find a way to get it, but that's another story. But our love, a mother would say to a young child, no, firecrackers wouldn't be a good toy, even though you might think it's fun to have. Is that love? I think that's love. The mother is teaching him that is not something he ought to have.
Here What about love, one toward another?
We know Scripture said, where to do unto the least of our brethren.
And I'll confess something else with you.
It's difficult. I find it difficult.
If a brother from an unknown place, we know of him, but no, but from away from us coming look destitute.
And perhaps he's been homeless for a while, and you know that you can smell him from down the hallway.
How many of us would be that eager to be the first one to run up the sea if this brother truly need help?
I'll confess I have trouble with that.
But we know we ought to. In fact, I know I should tell you that you should.
Is that love?
It's hard, isn't it? But as Christian walk, it's not just the love. We'll find a three go hand in hand together. Because when you have that work of faith, I believe the label of love will come a lot easier when we are reminded what the Lord has done for us. How destitute were you? I can't say I was.
How blind were we? How poor?
In the power of darkness.
Yet he came down.
That's the true exhibition of love for God.
So loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Then he said.
Perhaps it's easy to reread the whole verse again, remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father.
It's not in the sight of our brethren.
It's easy to talk to you and tell you my faith.
It's not easy to walk, is it? It's not easy when we are with our coworkers, with our friends at schools.
But here do we have and are reminded of the hope. Now notice here not just the hope is the patience of hope.
How long do we have to wait?
How long?
Not only that, we are brethren who waited and now.
The absent in the body.
That's why when you get to the 4th chapter, they actually did raise that question, didn't they? How long do we wait? Well, we need to learn that. Let me change that.
Many of my brethren who have gone ahead of me, now the body, they are absent in the body.
But you know, brethren, we have something that is so wonderful that we don't often look onto.
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We may have the privilege to be to see the Lord taking us home without going through the article of death.
Even if I say I am older, I may do we believe the lawmaker come any moment. So if a brother here is 95 years of age, could he Oh what a wonderful thing that we and.
Again, it's not my thought to go into that, but he further on expounded. Are we waiting for that child from our glorious Lord, That blessed hope, That hope I believe, is more than just Him taking us home. Yes, it's wonderful to know that the dead in Christ shall rise 1St and we which are alive and remain, we will be caught up together in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Believe the book here. The thought really is his coming, The Lord's coming, in fact. Let me digress.
Some of you may have the King James translation. In fact, just for property of time, you can look that up. That section is in bracket. It's a parenthesis. They are looking for the coming of the Lord to take care of everything, all the problems in this world.
But if you look into King James on the 4th chapter, that's in parentheses. SF Well, let me share some secret with you in between that you the one who have gone before, he's going to take us out of this scene. Yes, the Lord's still going to come. So we find at the end of the first chapter in verse 10 there he can say, let me read verse nine first. And for they themselves show us what?
Manner of entering in what we had unto you.
And how he turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. What a wonderful thing that they have learned. They turn to God from idols. You know, sometimes we say in this country, well, we don't have idols. If a brother Tim was here, he can say he can tell us stories of all these idols they have in foreign lands. And I'm sure brother Bob May sees some of those as he travels.
And I said it to a man one day, he said, what do you mean? He said right here in the city of Toronto, or I should say right back at the city of Toronto, he said, we got idols. I go, oh, you mean the new, new Buddhist temple and the mosque. And he go, no, no, look at all those bank buildings.
Idols. Isn't it different forms? Anything that take your heart from our Lord is idle.
Idolatry is a problem for many of us. Still you say no, I don't have that wooden things.
Some of you may enjoy Chinese food. I do know on occasions you go into a Chinese restaurant. Most, if not all, if you look carefully in the back corner somewhere, there's a little, I don't know what they call the sanctuary with incense burning. That's their idol. But you know, The funny thing with their idol is they're like Christians.
It's an idol because one it is an idol 2.
I share with some young people the other day. You notice if you look carefully at the incense.
They're just yellow stick with an LED bulb at the end.
They want to make sure that continually burns.
So it fulfilled their obligation as whatever it is in regard to burning the incense. And sometimes you see some meat or fresh fruit on it, Look carefully.
They're really nicely done, not probably made in China. Plastic fruit almost look real this way they can continually outward appearance they do. I don't know what they have to do required to. Well, we laughed. Do we not do that?
I don't know what your idols are.
That we put an outward front and inwardly we serve something else. Brewing money can be an idol, too.
Food can be an item.
If you live for the food, that's an idol.
Today, exercising, bodybuilding, I said to some young man yesterday, he said he'd go to the gym. I said I don't know what that word means. I haven't been in one yet.
I'm not saying they're wrong. It can be an idol if this is where your heart and your mind is focused on. So they turn from idols in their case, perhaps these real things that they bow and worshipped to God. Many here, I know you have turned to God. Oh.
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But we need to be like these Christians of old. Put away those idols.
And look back to God and be guided by Him.
And verse 10 and to wait for this, for his Son from heaven whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus which deliver us from the wrath to come. That's how we know this is not talking about a rapture. There is a wrath to come. This world is going to face that wrath that Jesus going to come.
Not like he did the first time.
Is to come to execute judgment upon this earth.
Young people learn this phrase.
We know the Son of God, you can look that up to see what it means. I'm sure you understand that. Look up the Son of Man is an interesting phrase or term in there. I'll give you a little hint as you look it up. The Son of Man sneaks off the despised and rejected 1.
The Son of Man is also the one who's going to come and execute judgment. It's interesting to look up that character, the Son of Man. So there is the Son of God with a capital S. There is a Son of Man with a capital's. There are the sons small's of man and the sons of God. It's interesting that I will leave that part with you. They were exhorted.
And be reminded, this world is ripe for judgment.
Now with one more comment.
A lot of people in this world would acknowledge that we're from Adam.
Very few would deny that.
But yet not very many would say we're from Noah. I know I'm from Noah, and I'm pretty sure, in fact I'm 100% sure you are from Noah.
Why do we not talk that way?
Now this is just my own fault.
If I say I'm from Adam Adams bad, he's saying So what? I'm bad too?
Noah Very different. Noah There was a judgment, not just judgment, but judgment was executed.
Only eight souls were saved the whole world, including perhaps some of the angels.
These spiritual beings were put and will find that in Peter is there into those pits chained in the darkness. Oh, I trust that we can be encouraged by looking at these so-called newly saved Christians. I don't know how. Oh I heard someone said perhaps 3 weeks, 3 months. I'm not too sure why I need someone to help me how they determine that because the apostle Paul from what?
And didn't write the first epistle. This is the first epistle we wrote, but it's more likely on the second missionary journey. So there was a little bit of time in between. So either way, it's not important. But to know that, let's read that again instead of me saying it. The work of faith, the labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the sight of God.
And our father, perhaps we'll just.
Singing closing hymn #230.
I know this hymn is not as if lifted up to a different sphere, but I'd be believe it is important to be reminded as we walk here that our Lord Jesus should always be our object and guide. Oh Lord, when we the path we trace, which Thou on earth has trod to man Thy wondrous love and grace.
Thy faithfulness to God. Perhaps we start at verse 2.
Thy love by man.
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Sion.
I hear thy side.
To stay.
Unfaithful.
Light.
Father's name Confess.
And dangerous world.
On good, I say.
My earth with smiles.
I want me to.
Cross.
We wander.
Like.
Holy heart, I'm faithful.
For me.
And pleasure point and burning.